Reward Enough
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: “We don’t get paid, we don’t get thanked…”


_Previously appeared in _Of Dreams & Schemes 22_ (2007), from Of Dreams & Schemes Press  
With huge thanks to Cathy and R in the wee hours of the morning_

**Reward Enough**  
K Hanna Korossy

"Dean," Sam said quietly after the first hundred miles. "They didn't mean anything by it."

Dean's eyes never moved from the road. "Right, because people point guns accidentally at us all the time."

"We usually arrive in small towns when something bad is happening—of course they're gonna be suspicious."

"And when we put our lives on the line to fix it, they run us out of town. Nice."

"They didn't tell you to leave."

A muscle ticced in Dean's jaw. "They were ready to _shoot _you, Sam. They wouldn't have liked me if we'd stayed."

That shut him up for another hundred miles.

The truth was, it hadn't just been Tuckerlin. There had been Sumter before that, and the one cop in Sioux Falls, and couldn't forget that nasty scene in the diner in Cumberland. There were usually one or two people in every job who knew what they'd done and were grateful for it, mostly potential victims or families of victims. But of late it seemed like the brothers only ran into those who resented their presence, suspected their intentions, and hated them on principle. Sam got that they were scared and wary, and forgave. Dean usually did as well, but he'd been dealing with it for a lot longer, and everyone had their limits. And that was before people had started threatening Sam.

"It wasn't personal, Dean."

"Shut up, Sam."

The funny thing was, usually their roles were reversed, Sam angsting over the frigid welcomes and dirty looks, Dean blowing them off. Their job wasn't about being popular, his brother had told him a few dozen times, and Sam was no closer to being okay with that than he had been four months, or four years earlier. He didn't want to be watched with fear, to have kids shy away from them. No thanks were needed, but would it be so much to ask not to be shunned?

At least they always had the satisfaction of knowing they'd done something important, and Sam always had Dean. If not vice-versa. Sam sometimes wondered if that wasn't part of the real problem.

"We don't have to do this job."

That earned him an incredulous glare. "You just spent two days talking me into this, dude. Make up your mind."

"No, I still think it's our kind of job and it's important, I just…Dean, maybe we need a break."

"We don't have time to take a break. Nine people have already disappeared, right?"

"Fine, after this one then. Something fun, someplace safe where we don't have to watch our backs all the time."

"We always have to watch our backs," Dean said tonelessly.

And that was about the most depressing thing Sam had ever heard. "Dean," he said softly, and waited, waited until the hazel eyes finally shifted to him. "I can't do this alone."

That finally hit home. There was a flow of mixed emotions across Dean's face, ending in resignation. And the smallest hint of apology. "You're not alone, Sammy," Dean said, still sounding stiff but at least not angry. He turned back to the road, and his hands flexed around the steering wheel, losing their white-knuckled grip. "You're never gonna be."

Sam smiled a little at that, the tension inside him unclenching in return, and didn't speak again until they hit Almond Creek. It wasn't all better, but it was a start.

Almond Creek was like every other town that had the population of a single block in New York City: casual, one main commercial strip, and staring faces wherever they went, even through the pouring rain. Sam could pretend sometimes it was the car, and Dean often pretended it was his looks, and sometimes they were both right. But the fact was that they always stuck out in places like this. And when nine people had gone missing out of a few hundred residents, that wasn't a good thing.

Sam could feel his brother's hackles rising again as they made their way down the main street and parked in front of the one diner. For all his devil-may-care attitude, it mattered to Dean what people thought, or at least good people, and the hostile glares didn't roll off his back as easily as he made it seem. Going from place to place where you were suspected took its toll.

Sam took a breath and cocked his head at his brother. "You ready for this?"

A glowingly bland smile appeared. "I'm always ready."

"Yeah, right," Sam muttered under his breath, and returned the empty smile as Dean looked at him suspiciously. They jumped out of the car to dash through the rain, and went into the diner.

Half the people inside had already been watching them, but the other half took note now, and Sam's awkward smile of greeting wasn't returned. Dean didn't even bother, ignoring their audience as he slid into the booth by the door, facing the entrance. It was as instinctive as claiming the bed by the door, and Sam never fought it even though he'd been bred hunter enough to also prefer a wall behind him. But he trusted his brother to watch his back. More than he trusted himself, in fact.

A waitress, middle-aged and tired, came by with menus and a scrutinizing look. "What would you fellas like?"

Even a taciturn Dean usually couldn't resist a woman, and Sam hid a smile as his brother's attitude turned on a dime. Out came the charming and slightly more sincere grin, and the twinkle in the eyes. "What do you suggest?"

The woman's eyebrows rose and her shoulders straightened. Probably didn't often get hit on by guys half her age, Sam surmised, and was pleased when she melted under Dean's charm. It was a small win, anyway, and allies were good. Someone not hating Dean and not drawing on Sam was even better.

They got not only coffee, but also donuts while they waited for their order, and Dean absently dunked his in his mug while he watched the waitress. His smile had disappeared the moment she had. There was nothing playful in his tone when he said, "Ten minutes."

"That long?" Sam mused. "I think the rumor mills work faster than that."

Dean nodded at her. "She had to go pick up some orders—that slowed her down." A wry twist of the lip. "There she goes."

Sam watched without appearing to as the waitress bent low and conferred with a few regulars at the counter. One glanced back at them, and Dean's eyes slid over Sam's knowingly and not a little cynically. All they'd told her was that they were passing through on their way to see family upstate and they needed a break from the road. The last part was true, anyway, Sam thought. The first one was wishful thinking.

Sam cleared his throat. "We could always find a place outside of town, or stay in the car. There's no need—"

"Part of the job, Sam," Dean said, and there came that smile again as the waitress returned to refill their mugs.

All the sincerity in it had evaporated, but Sam knew she wouldn't even see that.

00000

They got directions at the diner to the only place to stay in town, a bed-and-breakfast down the street. It was a little early to turn in for the day, so they'd avoided the leading questions of the owner and stopped only to dump their bags in the room before heading to the library.

Local papers were goldmines of information, and Sam flipped through the pile in front of him, amused by stories of orchard thieves and runaway pigs. Apparently, until people had started vanishing, the biggest news in the area was the preparation for an annual almond festival that was still two months away.

Another paper, another screaming headline: Dewey Beets Sixth Disappearance. They were using their two-inch, apocalypse-caliber typeface, Sam noted with a sigh. No wonder the two of them had been getting strange looks. He read on, and frowned.

"Dean?"

"Hmm?" His brother had a map and his journal out, but was absorbed in reading something in their dad's journal. He looked up at Sam distractedly, pen poised in hand. "You got another one?"

"Uh, yeah, in a minute, but listen to this: 'Andy Gilsenan was with the victim at the time of his disappearance, and described it as, "It was like he just stepped through a hole in the air and vanished."'" Sam met his brother's eyes. "Witnessed disappearances? Another David Lang?"

Dean frowned. "Maybe. I thought there weren't any witnesses."

"That's the first one I've found so far." Sam flipped through the papers he'd already read. "But most of these disappearances happened in pretty remote places—farms, an orchard, a hiking trail."

"The whole place is remote," Dean muttered back. "Where was that one?"

"Uh…" Sam searched a moment. "Ogilvy Road, in front of the Beets' farm."

Dean made a face. "And if we were locals, that might actually mean something. I'm gonna have to go out and track a few of these places down, Sam."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. I get the impression we're not going to get a lot out of the townspeople."

"Ya think?" Dean winced. "Man, you know what those back roads are gonna do to my car?"

Sam's mouth quirked. "You could always walk," he offered, smile growing at Dean's snort. He flipped through the newspapers, looking for highlights, and stopped suddenly.

Dean looked up. "What?"

Sam cleared his throat. "There was another disappearance last night."

"Yeah? Where?"

"Not where. Who." Sam chewed his lip. "Melanie White, age seven." He glanced up into his brother's equally grim face, and said softly, "No wonder they're so suspicious. They're losing kids, Dean."

"We're gonna end this," Dean said firmly. The cynicism was gone, just like that. Dean had never tolerated anyone messing with kids. "Locations, Sam."

"Uh, right." Sam bent over the papers, reading off the scraps of information while Dean wrote.

Ten disappearances, ten locations, all of them far-flung, four of them vague. Dean x-ed the map for the ones they knew, but there was no discernable pattern, just a sprinkle of losses. Sam, meanwhile, borrowed his brother's journal and started adding other details: dates and times, victimologies. Nothing was jumping out, but they were still only a few hours into the hunt.

"Okay," Dean sat back, "I'll go look the rest of these places up."

"You want some company?" Sam offered.

Dean shook his head. "One of us might as well stay dry. Exercise that big brain of yours and check out the town, and anything you can find about thin-air disappearances. We might get lucky, find out this place is UFO central or something."

Sam smiled. "Aliens? I guess that would explain the disappearances."

"And this freaky rain. I'll be lucky if the car doesn't end up stuck in the mud bath out there."

"Call if you need help," Sam said, and got only a wave of the fingers as Dean left.

Sam stared after him a minute, then shook himself and went back to work. He had a puzzle to figure out.

00000

They should add a new rule to hunting, Dean decided as he accelerated down another formerly dirt road, trying not to get mired in what was now an ooze of mud. No hunting in small towns in the rain. Dry dirt roads were hell on the suspension, but wet ones strained the engine and risked trapping them there until Christmas. Nothing was worth this trouble.

Except maybe missing seven-year-old girls.

Dean sighed. Why did it have to go after kids? He could almost have convinced himself this town didn't want their help finding more of their surly residents until Sam had brought up Melanie White. Probably knew just what he was doing, too, that sneak. He would figure Dean couldn't resist a missing kid.

Just like he'd known something was eating at Dean those last few gigs. Dean had tried not to be obvious about it, but his little brother had gotten too good at reading him, which probably should have disturbed Dean more than it did.

Sam kept trying to make him talk, make him feel better about the fact they'd nearly been run out of the last town at gunpoint—that Sam had nearly been shot—but from where Dean stood, there was no making that better. He'd made peace with the idea that what they did would never make them popular or rich. He'd even almost accepted that it was a dangerous job and might cost them their lives someday, although Dean would go first before he'd let anything happen to Sam. But when the danger came from the people they were supposed to be helping? How was he supposed to be okay with that? A bullet from a scared farmer's gun would kill just as surely as a werewolf's bite.

He was just tired, Dean told himself as he fought the wheel again. Tired of fighting the good along with the evil. Tired of the ingratitude and the unkindness. Tired of being the bad guy. Heck, sometimes he was just tired of the whole hunt. And the so-called innocents weren't helping.

But a seven-year-old kid was purely a victim, nothing else, and Dean couldn't ignore that. And Sam, with those damnably earnest eyes, saw past the tarnished surface to the bits of belief Dean still clung to, and knew they wouldn't walk away from this one.

As if he'd really needed that incentive. A seven-year-old's innocence was not the only thing Dean would fight to protect.

A mailbox up ahead read "Beets," and Dean checked the odometer, noting distance, then the area for landmarks. He couldn't stop to mark the map for risk of sinking into the mud, but he would find the spot even hours later. Dean did a quick 180 in the mud, smiling faintly as he let the car slide through the turn, and headed back to town. It held no appeal besides hot food and a bed, but Sam was waiting.

The library was closed, so Dean headed back to their room. He parked the Impala, shaking his head at the mud-splattered panels on the car, and trudged inside.

Sam opened the door at Dean's first knock like he'd been standing there expecting it. One eyebrow-climbing look at Dean standing shivering in the doorway, and Sam said one of the nicest things his brother had ever heard. "You get cleaned up. I'll go pick up some dinner."

"Well, if you're gonna twist my arm…" Dean grinned and patted him on the side as Sam passed him, not missing his brother's grimace at the wet touch. Within a minute, Dean was relaxing under a spray of hot water, marveling at how easy little brothers were to manipulate even when they were better educated and taller. Some things just never changed, and Dean was cheerfully grateful for this one.

Sam still hadn't come back by the time Dean reluctantly finished his shower and got dressed, and he peered out the dark window onto the street with a small frown. The diner was just a block away, and service had been fast earlier that day. It was still pouring rain, which both might have slowed Sam and discouraged Dean from going after him…but unease tugged at his mind. Once decided, Dean moved quickly, throwing on boots and his jacket and turning up the collar as he ventured out into the wet dark.

The diner, he was surprised to find, was closed, a sign in the window directing the hungry to the bar farther down the strip. Dean checked his watch; it was later than he'd realized. It also explained what was keeping Sam, but he might as well keep going if he'd gone this far, and Dean strode on down the sidewalk. At least the overhang kept him relatively dry.

The bar was a warm and lively counterpoint to the chilly wetness outside, and Dean felt his muscles loosen a little as he stood inside the door and took in the place. Even small town bars were usually accepting of strangers, alcohol and music lubricating social wheels. It was his kind of place, a piece of familiarity wherever he went, and Dean breathed it in now like air.

Speaking of familiar, he craned to see his brother, and caught sight of the thatch of dark hair at the end of the bar, Sam just now paying for their dinner. The bag of food sat on the bar top in front of him, and Sam collected it before turning toward the door, eyes almost instantly catching on Dean. Amused tolerance touched them, recognizing Dean had come looking for him, but no resentment. It was one of the few things that had grown easier between them instead of harder the time they'd been apart: Sam had become a man and no longer fought constantly to prove himself. It had taken a whole half-day after they had reunited for him to stop minding Dean calling him "Sammy," and he followed Dean's lead as willingly as Dean followed his. He still rolled his eyes at his big brother's protectiveness, but tough, there were some things that were never going to be any different, and Sam seemed to accept that, too.

He moved through the crowded bar with the same grace he showed on the hunt…when he wasn't tripping over his too-long legs. Dean smiled at the thought the same moment someone jostled into Sam, sending him lurchsing into another patron. Dean couldn't hear the apology, but he could see the earnestness in his brother's face as his mouth formed the words.

Dean's eyes hardened as the guy he'd bumped stood up to face Sam, body language radiating irritation. A second later, Dean was pushing his way in to his brother's side, a little less gentle in his passage than Sam had been.

"…here and shove people around. Who do you think you are?" the man was just finishing up in a low, hard voice. His brown, weathered face and wiry body attested to a life outdoors, and his stance warned he knew how to throw a punch.

Dean read his brother's uncertain tension even more easily, and slid in between the man and Sam. He grinned only with his mouth. "Problem here?" he asked pleasantly.

Small eyes narrowed at him. "What're you supposed to be, his pit bull?"

"Yeah, I am," Dean said, motionless. "Wanna see my teeth?"

Sam's fingers dug into his back, a silent protest at the interference, but they always provided a united front and Sam didn't say a word. They both waited as the man eyed them, weighing odds and what he saw in their faces, then finally grimaced and shook his head. "Not today, kid." He turned his back on Dean and sat down again.

Which was really good because the guy was bound to have friends in the bar. Dean made a mental note not to come in here hustling and coldly met the few eyes that stared too long at them, before plowing back toward the front door. He could feel Sam follow.

His brother's silence lasted two seconds past the door, which was about a second longer than Dean had expected it to. "Dude," his shoulder was tugged from behind, "I can fight my own battles, you know."

"I know," he said easily, glancing back at Sam with barely a shrug. "Guy just ticked me off, Sammy."

"Yeah, because he was in my face."

"So?"

Sam stared at him a moment, then sighed with exasperation. "I'm not ten, Dean."

"No, I could make you stay in the car when you were ten," he shot back. The rain was trickling off the roof and down his back, and Dean moved a little farther in from the edge of the sidewalk.

Sam didn't look amused or fond anymore. "Is that what you want? To keep me safe in the car somewhere while you go face the danger? I thought you wanted a partner."

Well, this conversation was spinning out control. Dean stared at his brother, a tense fear running down his spine, the kind he never felt when facing dangerous creatures three times his size. "Quit the drama queen act," he found himself growling, because the more coherent part of his brain always seemed to shut down whenever Sam grew frustrated with the way they were doing things. Dean wasn't sure if it was fear or anger, and hadn't tried to figure it out. "We _are_ partners. You're also my little brother. Live with it." He turned away and started walking again.

But Sam wasn't following anymore.

Dean stopped, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to admit that even if he wanted to.

"Dean." Sam's voice had dropped, the fight gone out of it. "I know what happened in Tuckerlin scared you, but…we can't let this get to us. If we're gonna do this job, we have to deal with the risks, no matter where they come from. You can't let the civilians get to you, man—you have to trust me to look after myself."

"That's not it," he said before he thought about it.

Sam's voice was all attentive concern. "Then what is?"

Dean's jaw flexed. "Leave it alone, Sam."

"Not gonna happen, Dean. You're the one always telling me to talk about things."

He turned back, gave Sam a pointed look. "Yeah, and we both know how well that works."

Sam's shoulders sank a little, but he didn't say anything, just watched Dean with that half-trusting, half-wary kicked-puppy look he did so well.

Something caved inside Dean. He took a step back to his brother, and tried to keep his voice even as it threatened to break. "Look, I don't know any other way to be, Sammy, okay? I'm your brother, and that means the full package deal: bossing you around, holding your head when you throw up and get all disgusting, making you go out in the rain for dinner, putting you to bed after you get hurt or have a nightmare or get stinking drunk, protecting you. You're not the only one who's ready to die for his brother, you know. So, yeah, I'm a real jerk that way, but this is who I am, Sam."

Sam's eyes shone from under his damp fringe of hair. "I know. I'm not trying to change you, Dean."

Okay, anti-climactic. Dean blinked at him uncertainly. "Good. Then…we're on the same page here."

"I just don't want to see you burn out, all right? The worrying thing, it goes both ways."

"I know that, Sam," Dean said mutedly, then let impatience creep in. "Now, are we done with this touchy-feely crap? I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

And Sam's mouth curved into the smile Dean had missed so much during the years they had been apart. He held up the bag. "How do chili-cheeseburgers and southern fries sound?"

"Sammy," Dean said wholeheartedly. "Marry me." He wasn't sure what they'd just said that either of them hadn't already known, but as long as it had cleared the charge out of the air, he was happy to go with it.

Sam laughed, and knocked him in the ribs with the bag. "You should be so lucky."

00000

"Okay," Sam said slowly, "I think I've got something."

Dean blinked up at him, chin propped in one hand so he wouldn't fall asleep while he read. Not that he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, but historical records were _so _riveting. "What?"

"This isn't the first time there have been a string of mysterious disappearances around here."

That _was_ something. Dean sat up, completely awake now. "When?"

"Nineteen-fifteen. About ninety years ago." Sam's hand moved along the lines of text as he summarized. "And it was about a hundred miles over in another town, but the same story: people vanishing into thin air, sometimes in front of a bunch of witnesses. Some say it was one of the inspirations for Ambrose Bierce's 'The Difficulty of Crossing a Field.'"

Dean gave him a puzzled _What are you yammering about?_ look before craning to see what Sam was reading from, and saw a book on county history. Half the stuff they read probably no one else ever had or would except maybe the author's mother. "How many?" he asked quietly.

Sam looked up at him. "Twelve before it stopped."

Twelve. Dean made a face. That meant two more here. "Have you checked the chronology?"

"No, I was about to. But want to bet it matches?"

Dean looked past Sam, thinking. "So, we're looking at twelve disappearances—not deaths—unevenly spaced but in the same pattern, ninety years apart." He met Sam's eyes. "That sound familiar at all to you?"

Sam shook his head slowly as he wrote notes and did some figuring. "No. It's longer than any cryptid's hibernation cycle I know, and it's not like any supernatural phenomenon I've ever heard of."

"Besides, creatures would probably leave bodies. Even if it killed and hid them, ninety years is a long time for hiking boyscouts or a lost backpacker not to stumble over the remains."

"And it doesn't explain the thin-air disappearances." Sam's writing suddenly stopped, and he cursed quietly under his breath.

Dean's eyes narrowed and he leaned in. "What?"

Sam looked up. "If these disappearances keep the same pattern as ninety years before, and they look like they are, it means number eleven was late last night."

Dean stared at him a moment, then rose and went to collect a daily paper. He only had to glance at the headline before grimacing and tossing it in front of Sam.

"'Sidney Welch Eleventh Area Disappearance,'" Sam read.

"When's the last one?" Dean asked impassively.

Sam consulted his notes, and laughed without mirth. "About seven o'clock tonight."

Dean dragged in a frustrated breath. "That long, huh? What are we gonna do with all our free time?"

They'd already had some of Dean's Doritos and soda for breakfast, but they couldn't live on junk food. In resignation, they finally collected their notes and copies and dashed across the street from the library to the diner for lunch.

All eyes in the half-full restaurant turned toward them at their entry.

"Well, that's new," Dean said dryly, and slid into his seat opposite the door.

"Eleventh disappearance last night," Sam reminded him quietly, and picked up the menu.

The same waitress from the day before stomped over, but the blush was gone. Her mouth drawn in a crisp line, she took their orders and marched off, favoring them with a steely glare as she went.

So much for allies.

Dean watched her go because that was still the best scenery in the place, but left his mind carefully blank. Especially since Sam was giving him the Compassionate Eye again. He turned back to his brother with a flat smile. "So, vanishing tonight at seven. I'll clear my calendar."

Sam, thankfully, accepted the distraction. "And we still don't know what we're up against or where the last disappearance is going to take place."

"You mark Sid on the map?"

"Yeah." Sam folded the map so the field of x's was in the center and pushed it over to Dean, pointing to one in the northeast corner. "For all the good it did. The records from nineteen-fifteen weren't detailed enough to map, so we've got nothing to compare it to."

"Mmm," Dean said, sipping coffee as he studied the map.

Sam sighed and just stirred his iced tea. "Maybe we could pay a visit to the witness, Andy Gilsenan. See if he—or she—noticed anything else."

The waitress returned, thunking down their plates with table-rattling thuds. Sam jumped, the wuss, and Dean nearly smiled until he caught sight of the waitress's scowl. His gaze involuntarily continued on to the unfriendly stares around them, sobering him again. "Yeah, because the townspeople have been so anxious to talk to us so far. It's frickin' amazing they haven't sent the sheriff to run us out of town yet."

Sam shifted in his seat, not looking at anyone but Dean. "They're just worried," he soothed. "Their friends are disappearing and they don't know what's going on."

The waitress swung by again to fill up their drinks. "You boys going to be staying long?"

"We're leaving as soon as we can, sweetheart," Dean said evenly before Sam had a chance to more than open his mouth. He wasn't sure he could stand his brother's soft platitudes just then.

The waitress grumped and stomped off.

Dean's mood darkened further as he exchanged another glance with Sam. "_That's_ whose side you're taking?"

"I'm not saying I agree with them," Sam insisted. "I can just see where they're coming from."

"Where they're coming from is, they don't want us here." Dean looked suspiciously at his food. "You don't think she spit in this, do you?"

Sam made a face and took a deliberate bite of his lunch. "So we do what we do and move on. I'm not seeing how this is different than usual, man."

Dean plowed a frustrated hand through his hair. "Dude, I get that they're scared, okay? I even get the bad vibes. But we can't fight whatever it is out there plus a whole town, Sam. I can't—" He sealed his mouth.

"What, Dean?" Sam prodded gently. "Can't stand everybody hating you? Can't protect me from everything?"

College had made Sam a lot more perceptive as well as smart, and Dean shied away from the knowing gaze, the words coming a little too close to the truth. He shook his head sharply. "Forget it. I'm going out after lunch and taking some readings from the last abduction site, see if I can pick up some EMF."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay. I need to do a little more research on the area, anyway, figure out if something in the past might've led to this."

Dean nodded uncomfortably, eyes already retreating to the map to avoid any further heartfelt discussion or Sam's piercing gaze. He shoveled in a mouthful of Salisbury steak, listening with half an ear to the muted sound of the people around him, and Sam eating, always tuned to his surroundings. It hadn't hit Dean until Lake Manitoc how having Sam back had been like filling a hole in the flow of his environment, the presence Dean's senses had strained for uselessly those last three-plus years. It was like getting the missing piece back that pulled together everything else.

Missing piece… Absently, Dean reached for Sam's pen and started drawing, using the edge of his journal as a straight-edge.

Sam leaned in to watch what he was doing, floppy hair brushing against Dean's. Somehow, he never seemed an intrusion on Dean's strict sense of personal space. "Did you find something?"

In fact, having him close cleared Dean's head, as if he could let go of the worry his mind chewed on when Sam was out of his sight. Dean's hand moved with more certainty as it drew the last few lines. Then he sat back and looked up at Sam, tacitly questioning if Sam saw what he did. Even under those bangs, he saw his brother's eyes draw together in concentration, then abruptly widen. Bingo.

"Equilateral triangles," Sam breathed.

Dean's mouth quirked. "Equilateral? They teach you any normal words at school?"

The smack of his arm was automatic and distracted. "They're perfect triangles, Dean. Four of them." Sam was tracing lines with one long finger. "And look what they have in common." He tapped the spot.

Two of the triangles shared a point, so the eleven x's did make up four complete triangles…but they overlapped only in one small corner. Dean brushed Sam's hand aside and looked closer. And winced. "Middle of farm country. Figures."

Sam grinned at him. "At least we won't have to deal with the civilians."

"No, just a swamp of a road, rain, and cowpies. Wet cowpies," Dean complained. But that was a far preferable obstacle, and one he could live with. More importantly, one they could both live with. "Terrific."

Sam's smile was equal parts sympathetic and amused.

And for a minute, Dean almost forgot about everybody else in the room.

00000

Dean hated rain. And snow, and sleet, and every other form of precipitation and temperature extreme and the effects thereof. With the way they'd grown up, moving all over the country on a regular basis, he probably should have been used it all now, and some part of him could shut the distraction away and focus on the job at hand. But that still didn't mean he had to like it.

Dean muttered another curse as he trudged a little farther into the cornfield. The Impala was parked on the grassy edge, the only place he could risk without her sinking in halfway up her wheels, but even so, his baby looked splattered and forlorn. The quicker they got this job done, the happier he'd be. And then they could move on to the next equally unfriendly little town and crappy conditions.

Dean swallowed a sigh. This wasn't like him, this melancholy, but it had taken hold and he couldn't seem to shake it. Sighing was unlike him, too, for that matter, usually more Sammy's thing. But there was only so far satisfaction of a job well done could go, especially when everything and everyone else seemed against him. Well, except for Sam.

But they'd almost taken his brother away from him in the last town, too.

It wasn't the near miss, because God knew they'd had plenty of those. No, it was something about those twisted, angry faces that had crawled inside Dean and lodged there. When the people you were trying to save hated you as much as what you were trying to save them from, what was the point? Something was wrong with thatm. And no ingrained lessons from John nor lifetime of habit was enough to risk Sam for it.

Dean just didn't see any way out, and that, that scared and ticked him off most of all.

With a growl, he swiped at the rain running into his eyes and pulled out the EMF detector. It had been Sam's idea to seal it in a sandwich bag to keep the electronics dry, and Dean had to grudgingly admit it was a good one. He flicked it on through the plastic, and wasn't the least surprised when half the lights along its edge came to life.

Residuals. Sid's disappearance had left a mark. So they weren't just dealing with some geometrically obsessed wolves or something.

Dean slipped the detector into his pocket and headed back toward the car.

His cell phone started ringing just a few steps away, and he quickened his pace to slide into the car's relative dryness before he pulled the phone out. _Sam_, the ID said, which he'd already figured, and Dean flipped it open. "Yeah?"

_"I think it's a portal." _

Dean frowned. "Come again?"

_"A portal. Some kind of open doorway between this plane and wherever."_

"Right. And you got this, how?"

_"There was a guy here in the early nineteen hundreds, Josiah Saunders. He was one of the town eccentrics, dabbled in the occult, tried some spellcasting. I'm reading his journal, and he mentions he accidentally 'ripped space open for a short time, exposing the world beyond.' It scared him bad enough that he got out of the black arts for good." _

Dean stuck the key into the ignition and turned it just enough so he could crank the heat on. "So you think old Josiah opened up this…portal?"

_"It makes sense. It's about the right time, and something like that is pretty hard to control or shut down again. There's no telling where or how it would open or for how long."_

"I'm getting some readings here—would these portals of yours give off EMF?"

_"Probably. It would give off some kind of energy." _

Dean frowned. "I don't know, Sam, that sounds pretty out there, even for us. Doors open to, what, some other dimension, in some nice equilateral triangles, and suck somebody in each time?"

_"It's possible. Dean, the rules for these things, they wouldn't have to make sense to us. It might involve magic from the other plane, or what the portal needs for power, or even some kind of cycle or law of physics at the other end." _

Dean rubbed from his jaw up to his forehead. "Dude, you're making my head hurt."

_"I'm just saying, I think I know what it is and how we can close it." _

Dean glanced at the dash clock. "I'll be back in twenty. Can you get what you need by then? That gives us two hours until open sesame."

_"I'll be ready." _

"Hey, Sam? We can't do this one someplace inside, huh, nice and dry?"

_"Sorry, Dean." _He could hear his brother's smile.

Dean snapped the phone shut and put it away, then started the engine. "Just my luck," he muttered to himself as he turned the car back toward town.

00000

"This is it?" Dean asked gloomily, already knowing the answer.

"This is it," Sam confirmed. "Looks like the portal has a little leeway about where to open so it can grab someone—it might even respond to us being here. But it'll be somewhere here in this field."

Dean eyed the grassy plain with distaste. "You do realize we're talking about a square mile or so of ground here."

Sam, unpacking supplies, stopped to give him a glowing smile. "Look at the bright side—if it responds to us, it'll come to us instead of the other way around."

"Yeah, that makes me feel so much better," Dean said, and moved off, shaking his head, to get a lay of the land where they were taking their weird little stand.

There wasn't much to see, however, just grass and some beaten-down flowers and bushes, all sagging from the relentless rain. The soaked ground smelled earthy, and the air was so thick with humidity, it made breathing a little more difficult. The dense air and the wet grass would slow down a run, and Dean automatically calculated compensations and tucked the information away until needed. Otherwise, there were no sudden dips in the ground to trip them up, no ticked-off animals, farm or otherwise, protesting their trespass, no farmers watching them, armed or not. Dean nodded to himself, then moved back to Sam's side.

"Looks clear." As safe as they got in their line of work, anyway. He canted his head. "Besides, you know, the whole rip in space that's about to open up in front of us."

"That's why we're starting the ritual early," Sam said automatically, even though he'd explained this in the car on the way over already. "It'll begin closing the portal almost as soon as it opens."

"No sucking us in," Dean warned.

"No sucking," Sam agreed.

"All right." Dean nodded, more appeased than happy. "Where do we start?"

Triangles seemed to be a real turn-on for the whole portal thing. Sam sketched out four of them in the flattened grass, leaving brightly colored colored cups Dean recognized from the diner at each corner. Soon, a scaled-down version of the pattern of disappearances was drawn out in the field, the overlapping part not far from Dean and measuring about six feet at its side. Dean watched it suspiciously, half-expecting the portal to appear as soon as Sam was done.

His brother placed the last cup and came back to Dean at the center. He grinned suddenly at Sam's sodden appearance, long hair now plastered to his forehead and dripping into his eyes.

"Don't say it," Sam said quickly, holding up a hand.

"I wasn't gonna say anything," Dean said innocently. Yeah, Sam didn't believe that, either. "So, we ready to start?"

Sam glanced around them, checking his work and nodding. "Yeah, I think so. I'll read the ritual while you go around and bless each corner, starting in the middle and working your way out. Don't stop until they're all done, okay?"

"Dude, I heard you the first three times—I'm not stupid." Rituals that dealt with power couldn't be stopped once they were started for fear of causing an energy backlash, which in Sam's dry words would be "really bad." Even Dean remembered his high school physics. Energy always had to go somewhere.

"No." Sam smiled in that way that always made a faint flush of embarrassment creep up Dean's neck. "You're not, but you do get…creative sometimes."

Dean shoved him toward their bag of supplies. "I'll show you creative," he muttered. "Get started, Einstein."

Sam, being Sam, had written out the ritual in neat script and then sealed the page in plastic, too. Behind his back, Dean smiled, nothing mocking in his amusement this time. Sam was a geek, but of the best kind, and the only thing that ever really scared Dean anymore was losing him.

His smile slipped a little, and he bent over their supplies to hide it.

These blessings involved sanctified oil—apparently the purifier of choice in all dimensions—and an olive tree branch. Dean didn't even ask anymore where Sam got stuff like that from; his brother had as many weird elemental hook-ups as Dean had munitions ones. He collected his part of the ritual and went to the first cup, rolling his eyes when he saw it was already a quarter full of rainwater. Good thing this ritual didn't need candles or they would have been screwed. Dean sank down on his haunches next to the cup and looked up at his brother.

Sam started to read.

Dean felt the portal before he saw it. Even as he did the requisite three waves of the oil-soaked branch over the apex of one triangle, he felt the electricity gathering in the air, tickling his exposed skin and standing the fine hairs of his neck on end. He glanced over at Sam as he finished the first point and moved on to the second, and could see his brother had noticed it, too, his knuckles white on the paper as he chanted softly.

Another corner done. The crackling in the air was audible now, and Dean saw the flare of light from the corner of his eye as the branch descended on the third corner.

The portal opened.

The white light almost stayed his hand, until Sam's voice rose urgently and recalled Dean to himself. He continued with the motions, staring gape-jawed at the rent in the air and the absence of anything beyond it. Sam had said the portal would most likely be invisible, hence the witnesses' descriptions, but apparently they were already affecting it because its ragged edges glowed.

Fourth corner. The portal expanded, pulsing, and Dean was glad to be moving outward because it was disconcerting. The torn hole seemed to pause at its acme, and even as Dean moved on to the fifth corner, started to shrink.

And then a man stumbled through it.

They hadn't expected any survivors, nothing more than to just close the portal and keep it from taking further victims. Sam's voice stuttered, caught itself and kept going. Dean's hands kept moving.

Another person came through. A girl, maybe seven years of age. Dean's heart was the one to stutter this time. It was only partly for Melanie, though.

The portal was continuing to shrink, and there were apparently still nine people on the other side.

Sam's voice grew louder, but it was proximity, Dean realized a second later, not volume, as the printed ritual was suddenly thrust into his face. Sam pointed to a line, and then he was throwing himself toward the doorway. Into it?, Dean thought with a rush of panic, and realized a half-second later his brother's intentions as Sam wedged himself into the threshold like a six-foot-four doorstop and propped it open.

Another person, a woman this time, slipped under his arm and out into the field, looking as bewildered as the first two arrivals. Melanie began to cry.

"Dean!" Sam hissed, and that was all that was needed. Dean's eyes flew back to the paper and he started stumbling through the remainder of the ritual, bowl of oil cupped under the paper, branch moving as he continued with the blessings. Six corners done: more than half. Another man appeared, just over a third of the missing.

Dean slowed down as much as he dared, drawing the words and the motions out. Counting silently as his peripheral vision picked out each new movement at the opening, shell-shocked people they'd never thought would be seen again stumbling out into the rain.

But the portal continued to shrink. The last one had come through nearly bent in half, like an adult in a child's doorway, and Sam…

Sam was white. As Dean risked a glance at him between two lines of the ritual, his mind photographed all the details even in the dreary, rain-obscured light: Sam's paleness, the deep lines of strain around his eyes, the way his body trembled to fight what they themselves had started. What had he said about the portal requiring power? It seemed to be draining it from Sam, because this was more than mere exertion.

Dean started reading faster, willing the trapped people to _hurry. _

Seven corners done, he moved to the eighth. Only four more, and seven people were out. One person left per corner.

Sam groaned, back hunched in a painful arc. Dean flinched at the sound and kept going, the unfamiliar words threatening to tangle his tongue.

Eight and nine were done. Two more. And only one more person left. The one before him had to crawl out, Sam forced down to his knees.

Tenth corner. The portal sizzled its frustration as its last captive wiggled free. Dean's chanting hitched as he glanced back, waiting to see Sam throwing himself clear.

But he wasn't.

Dean could see it, even across the distance, the rain, the people milling frantically between them.: the helplessness in the hazel eyes, the utter depletion. The bloodless lips that formed a silent _I'm sorry_, even as Sam's eyes, shining with love and sorrow and regret, fluttered shut. Sam swayed, drained, and began to collapse. Inside the closing jaws of the doorway.

Dean's face twisted in anguish and he took an automatic step closer.

But two lines and one corner were left to prevent an energy backlash that would make forfeit all their lives. And even though Dean felt the pull of the portal now, the desperate need to save his brother, he could only stand and watch as the tear shrank, sealing Sam on the other side. His mouth, equally bloodless, formed the words that would doom his brother.

A hand shot out from the crowd and grabbed Sam's ankle.

Dean stumbled through the second-to-last line, watching uncomprehendingly as another hand joined it, then a third, pulling hard at Sam's shoes, his legs, soon his arm and jacket. Pulling him out of the impossibly small crack that remained, fighting the shrinking edges like Sam had.

The olive branch moved up and down. The words tumbled off Dean's tongue without his notice.

At least a half-dozen hands were on Sam now, drawing him out, cradling his limp body, his head. They just cleared the slash of light that remained when Dean said the final words, completed the last blessing, and with a silent, vacuumous pop, the portal vanished completely.

Leaving him in a wet field with almost a dozen strangers. And Sam.

Dean dropped the paper, the oil, and the branch, and stumbled forward as if his legs had forgotten how to work. The small crowd parted obediently for him.

Dean made it to Sam's side just as his knees gave out completely, but all that mattered now was that his arms cooperated. Dean lifted his brother from the cushioning hands and hauled Sam up against his chest. The dark head lolled against his shoulder, and Dean slid a hand up along his jaw both for support and to check his pulse.

It beat a steady and reassuring waltz against his fingertips instead of the pounding heavy metal beat he'd expected or, God forbid, dead silence. Sam's breath was cold against his wet face.

Dean buried his face in the soaked hair, not caring who was there or what they saw.

Who. Eleven people they'd never expected to find and had never met, who'd just saved his brother's life.

Dean looked up at the faces around them, seeing the same shocked bewilderment in their expressions as he felt, and an understanding he didn't. He gathered Sam a little closer, the feel of him slipping away too fresh and visceral, and fisted a hand in the dark hair.

Sam stirred, a newborn quiver, and his whisper was something Dean heard more than felt. "Dean… m'kay." He sagged again.

And he did seem all right, uninjured, just utterly depleted. Dean held him and stared at the people around them, who stared back.

It took a few seconds more, Dean had no idea how many, before he shook himself. "You can go home now. It's not coming back." His voice sounded like it might snap, either into rage or tears.

A man had picked up Melanie and held her, and he was the one who finally spoke up. "What…uh…"

Dean shook his head. He wasn't even about to go there. "It's not coming back," he repeated more firmly.

Murmurs. Dazed expressions giving way to relief, joy. One woman started to cry, and a teenage boy sniffed. They hadn't moved.

Dean hesitated, arm curling around Sam's dropped shoulders. Then he raised his chin and made the circuit of all the faces, staring each one in the eye. "Thank you."

More murmurs. Confusion still reigned, but there was no anger, not even suspicion, just a few quiet nods.

Dean rolled Sam's head in toward the crux of his neck, and slid his freed arm under the bent legs.

"Do you need some help, son?" The man didn't look strong, only in his fifties but twisted with arthritis. But the echo was picked up, carried through the crowd.

Dean looked at them again, and swallowed, feeling strangely humbled. "No. Thanks. I've got him."

He heaved Sam up against him, locking his knees to keep from falling. His brother was wet and heavy, and the car wasn't close, but…he could do this. He was doing this. Dean took two steps toward the end of the field. And stopped. Turned back.

People were already starting to drift off in pairs and singles, gravitating toward their own sanctuaries. Only the fifty-something man and the younger one who held Melanie continued to watch him. The older man raised a hand in goodbye and thanks.

Dean nodded at them and turned away. He juggled Sam a little higher, balancing the long body better against him, Sam's knuckles sliding against Dean's ribs with each step.

Dean kept walking, and didn't look back again.

00000

Sam lay half-awake a long time before he finally felt like opening his eyes.

Apparently, it had been a good idea to wait and marshal his strength, because it took more than he would have thought for the simple task. Sam blinked at the clock a few inches from his face and wondered dimly where he was.

He'd only had three years of waking up in a bed he knew, the same bed he'd lain down in. Before that, it had been a struggle to remember each time where they were now, what state, what motel. And sometimes how he'd even gotten back to bed, because he could only remember darkness and pain, and frightened voices. There was something deeply disconcerting about not knowing where you'd wake up.

Which was why Dean never let him wake up alone, a rule Sam had applied in turn as soon as he was old enough to realize its import. He'd had to fight John on it a few times—he suspected they both had—but he and Dean had always been there for each other to orient and reassure. It was the one constant in the ever-changing beds and homes that was their life.

Sam dragged in a breath, trying not to panic as the realization sunk in that he had no idea where he was, even though the place looked a little familiar, or how he'd gotten there.

A hand, rough in texture and gentle in touch, circled his wrist. "You're okay, Sammy."

Dean.

And just like that, he was okay.

Sam only managed the turn because it was more of a roll, letting himself flop onto his back from where he'd been resting on his side. It served its purpose, though, bringing a surprised and, for a second, blatantly relieved Dean's face into his frame of view. Sam wondered idly how many times Dean had soothed him back to sleep before.

"Sam?" Dean leaned forward, dropping his propped feet to the floor and making a half-hearted grab at whatever he had in his lap as it slid to the floor. "You finally awake?"

He licked his lips, uncertain. The fatigue was more pervasive than he'd ever felt, like moving in thick liquid. Even blinking felt slow and heavy. "Yeah?" He wasn't sure himself.

"'Bout time. I've got better things to do than sit here watch you sleep, you know." And yet, there he was. The flash of amusement was chased across Dean's face by something darker, more haunted. Sam knew that look, and did a quick mental check of himself. But he could feel no wounds, nothing but the exhaustion. A close call, then.

Dean leaned out of sight, then returned to fumble with something Sam couldn't quite focus on. It took a moment of struggle, but then Dean held it in front of his face, and Sam got a glimpse of a smiling apple in primary colors. He closed his eyes at the nudge of the straw at his lips, and managed a few drags from it before even that got to be too much. Apple juice, sweet and cold, and his mouth curled with childhood memories. Dean had gotten him juice boxes then, too.

The straw was withdrawn, and Sam felt his brother's blunt fingers shove his hair off his forehead. The strands felt stiff, stuck, much like his body. "You're gonna need a bath when you wake up again, bro," Dean said mildly. "But it can wait. Go back to sleep, Sammy. I don't think you're gonna dehydrate after all that rain you soaked up."

Sam didn't really understand it, not the words nor what had happened. But he got the sentiment and the promise of safety behind it, and it was enough for now. Sam coasted on it, sliding back toward sleep.

Dean took his wrist again, maybe checking his pulse this time, maybe more, and his words were a whisper at the edge of slumber.

"Everything's okay."

And his brother had power and magic of his own, because saying that always made it so.

00000

Sam dressed slowly, fingers still a little weak as they struggled with buttons and shoelaces. The shower had taken a chunk of his returned strength, but it had been worth it to be clean again, and it felt good to be up.

Dean was only half-pretending not to watch him while he sorted laundry—a process that involved sniffing clothes more than anything—and Sam figured it was one of those for-appearance's-sake things. God forbid Dean be caught caring about the brother whose bed he'd sat next to for two days. How much he did care still caught Sam by surprise sometimes, even though he'd leaned on that all his life, drawn strength from it even at Stanford. It was Dean's strongest, and least boasted about, trait, and Sam smiled at the thought.

"What's so funny?" Dean asked suspiciously from across the room.

"Just looking forward to getting out of this room," Sam said, glancing up at the crowding four walls. It was pretty decent compared to many of the places they'd stayed, but any room grew confining after three days, even three days of mostly sleep.

"You sure you up to going out for dinner?" Dean asked again. A slowly spreading smile. "I think they're gonna keep feeding us as long as we stay here."

Sam hadn't learned about it until that morning, not interested in the world at large for the last few days, but apparently baskets of food had been showing up at the door for every meal, and even Dean's detection skills hadn't revealed their source. Sam suspected he hadn't tried too hard. Dean was more prepared to face hostility than gratitude, and Sam still caught the occasional bewildered look in his eyes when the food came up. Sam was less surprised. One of the returnees through the portal was their Santa, probably, maybe the mom of the little girl. It had happened before.

"So?" Dean was still waiting for an answer, shaking his head once. "Sweet deal, Sam."

"I want some fresh air," Sam said, and finally gave up on buttoning his overshirt. Dean tossed him his hoodie instead, and Sam tiredly shrugged into it and zipped it up. "Rain's stopped and everything."

Dean glanced out of the window, brows drawn almost suspiciously. "Hey, you think the portal—?"

"No." Sam shook his head. "It was just rain."

Dean gave the weather a final disgruntled glance, then gave up on the laundry and crossed over to Sam, reaching out a hand. Sam rolled his eyes but took it and let himself be pulled to his feet. And steadied as a moment's dizziness passed. "You okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "Let's go."

Dean stayed at his side as they went down the stairs, more slowly than their usual canter, and they both nodded to the B&B proprietor. It was the first time Sam had seen anything resembling a genuine smile on the man's face.

It didn't end there. Whether due to the improvement in the weather or something more than that, they got several smiles and nods on the way to the diner. Dean shrugged uncomfortably in his jacket from the attention until one of the smiles came from a blonde in a mini-skirt. That seemed to loosen him up considerably, and Sam just shook his head, amused.

They were early for dinner and there weren't many in the diner, but the stares were still there. Where they'd radiated hostility and anger before, however, there was only simple curiosity and an abashed friendliness now. Sam noticed it in surprise, and Dean ducked again from the attention and slid into the booth. He immediately disappeared behind a menu.

"You think word got out about what we did?" Sam mused aloud.

"What gave you that idea?" came the sarcastic reply from the other side of the laminated sheet. Dean lowered it to glower at Sam as if Sam had broken the confidence. "Usually they don't tell anybody. I mean, that's how it's supposed to work, right, secret identity and all? Winchester Rule Number One?"

Sam smiled. "Actually, I think your secret's safe, Peter Parker. But the rules aren't for them, anyway. They disappeared, some of them for over a week, and suddenly they're just back? They had to say something."

"What, that they were trapped in a tear in space and we did a ritual that got them out?"

Sam looked at him steadily. "Maybe just that they were trapped and we helped them. It's what we do, right?"

Dean gave him a long look, eyes saying a million things, mouth just one. "Whatever, Sammy."

Both were plenty. Dean hadn't told him many details about what had happened out there, but some measure of his belief in what they did and the people they did it for had been restored in that wet field. Sam was grateful to the returnees for his life, but also for getting back the brother he knew.

Dean tossed the menu aside and gave the waitress a toothy smile when she came to take their order. She returned the smile. Sam had a feeling at least part of the meal would be on the house.

"So," he said, grabbing the salt shaker to toy with while they talked. "You found our next job yet?"

"Yup." Dean looked uncommonly pleased with himself. "Las Vegas."

Sam threw him a frown, which turned into a yawn. "For a _job?" _he asked disbelievingly.

"Two words, Sam: haunted slot machines."

"That's three words."

He might as well not have spoken. "It'll give you two days on the road to sleep, and…"

And Sam settled back happily to listen.

**The End**


End file.
